The Toronto Raptors are not making a permanent change to their starting lineup.

For more than a season now, the argument over whether or not to start Patrick Patterson at power forward has waged on. The case on either side has been made ad nauseam, and they are probably worth occasionally rehashing but not today. Besides, the rancor at either end had quieted to an occasional sarcastic comment when further evidence materialized to allow those anchors to dig in just a little deeper. Until Wednesday, anyway.

Coming out of halftime against the Philadelphia 76ers, head coach Dwane Casey opted to start Patterson rather than rookie Pascal Siakam. On the surface, it could easily be explained as a move based on matchups, with Philadelphia’s gigantic young front-court duo of Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor having presented a tough test for the nominal starters in the first half. For those who have been waiting on an overdue change to the opening five-some, it was an encouraging sign that the team may be reconsidering its stance on Patterson as a role-certain sixth-man.

For the time being, inertia makes a better case than Patterson.

“No,” Casey said Thursday at practice when asked if the change could become permanent. “Until we see a certain situation where we may take advantage of it. But it could be fluid. Right now, we’re going to stay with Pascal, but we hold the right to change our mind.”

Even if the Raptors don’t make a change to the starting group, Casey’s willingness to make that change on the fly not only speaks to his improvement over the years in terms of in-game adjustments, but also to a major strength the Raptors have: Flexibility.

A lot has been made of the Raptors’ exceptional depth — depth that’s rendered a capable rotation player in Norman Powell an afterthought most nights. The team is learning more and more how to leverage that depth. That goes beyond just trimming minutes for Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, insulating around DeMarre Carroll’s nights off, or giving Casey options if a rotation player doesn’t have it one night. The Raptors aren’t just deep — they’re versatile, too.

The 76ers brought that out in a larger sample than normal, with Casey’s halftime adjustment resulting in some smaller looks throughout the game, such as Siakam taking up Jakob Poeltl’s mantle as the de facto backup centre. That included the team’s late third quarter pull-away stretch with Patterson as the lone traditional front-court player on the floor, likely the smallest group the Raptors could ever reasonably play. Even in the first half, Casey had gone small, deploying three wings around Jonas Valanciunas, a look that helped extend the team’s second-quarter lead.

In general, those smaller looks proved effective, though Casey had some issue with how the four perimeter players defended around Valanciunas.

“I go back to our defensive end,” he explained, pointing out the 12 blow-bys the coaching staff counted. “Even when we go small like that, we’ve got to do a better job of rebounding…That’s something we have to do a better job at, especially when we’re small. Our small lineup’s got to be much better defensively.”

That the group struggled defensively is somewhat surprising, with all respect paid to the small-sample caveats that apply to any noisy single-game data. Generally, teams shift smaller to goose the offence, but the Raptors are in the interesting position of being able to upgrade the defence by going small, at least as match-ups allow.

Powell and Terrence Ross, in particular, have proven an effective duo over 66 minutes, about a third of them with the team playing small. The Raptors have allowed just 97.2 points per-100 possessions with their young wing pairing on the floor together, good for the fifth-best mark for any two-man pairing on the team that’s played at least 50 minutes together. Looking at the other pairings highlights perhaps the biggest key to their flexibility. Powell is in four of the team’s five best defensive two-man pairings. While he’s not the tallest guard, he has the length and intensity to play up one, or even two positions, and it sounds as if Casey is growing more comfortable with the idea of non-Carroll wings playing some power forward, too.

“We could bring Norm back in and play Norm or DC back in at the four. We’ve got to be creative until we get Sully (Jared Sullinger) back,” Casey said when asked how to break up Patterson’s sometimes-too-long stints. “It gives us flexibility that we can mix and match.”

That flexibility is proving important of late. Down Sullinger in the front court already, a minor knee injury to Lucas Nogueira forced Casey’s hand against Philadelphia and could do so again Friday against the Atlanta Hawks, who have multiple shooters in their front-court rotation. Poeltl has shown flashes of being ready for minutes, but if he stumbles or the matchup bends away from his strengths, Casey has options.

“It helps a lot. You need that, especially going later in the season,” Cory Joseph said. “It’s a long season – god forbid anybody gets hurt – rest and all that type of stuff. So you need guys that’ll be able to pick up the slack and whenever you get your name called upon, there’s no drop off.”

There’s an ancillary benefit to Casey’s willingness to play these groups, too, in the form of information. A lot of Toronto’s smaller lineup options make sense on paper and have proven effective in brief stints, but getting a better feel for how they’ll play together, or how the Raptors match up against different types of opponents, could be important. Last year, Valanciunas was hurt in the playoffs and the Raptors had to quickly find their footing playing with some unfamiliar groups. Getting to toy with different approaches now will provide at least a bit of illumination if the team is put in a similar position down the line.

Right now, the Raptors know that lineups with four perimeter players on the floor are working, lineups with their power forward sliding to centre are effective, and lineups that really downsize and do both are hammering opponents. Plus, they’re all a lot of fun to watch. The samples are only slivers, and while they back up some conventional wisdom given the pieces that make up those groups, a greater familiarity for the players and for the coaching staff wouldn’t hurt.

Casey embracing being shorthanded or facing unique matchups and getting creative in response could pay dividends down the line. No, Patterson isn’t likely to start at power forward on Friday, but it’s not for a lack of flexibility.

Blake Murphy is a freelance sportswriter and a regular contributor to The Athletic Toronto. Murphy is also the Managing Editor of Raptors Republic, as well as a contributor to Vice, Dime Magazine, Fangraphs and more. Suivez Blake sur Twitter @BlakeMurphyODC.